I have no idea why, but these flights to Tokyo seem so short. Despite staying up the night before I only managed to sleep for five of the twelve hours we spent on the plane. The rest of the time was spent entertaining the four year old next to me with magic tricks, reading her book about Disney princesses, and showing her how to draw on the computer.

The girl next to Todd slept in the most interesting position I've ever seen. Defying age old Japanese Etiquette, I took a picture for you.

Once we took the bus to Tokyo we were met by Blair, the guy renting us a room. Our room last year was fine, but nothing exceptional. This year we have a huge room with two beds, a couch, a TV, and a mini fridge. It's like a little hotel room. The rest of the house has a nice kitchen, living room, dining room, and bathroom shared by the rest of the residents.

Blair and his friend Masaki spent the evening running around with us setting up our phones for Japanese service (the people in the shops were very surprised that our phones work on the Japanese network) and helping us find a vegan restaurant.

The restaurant is just walking distance away from our apartment and is very good. The portions are small, unfortunately, but the food is exactly the stuff we like to eat. It's noon here right now and Todd has been finding more restaurants for us to try out.

I'd forgotten how absolutely crazy Tokyo is. There are people everywhere and despite 3 months of Japanese tapes, I can't tell what these people are saying. Hopefully a few weeks here will change that.

My friends Phil and Kristy are heading to Tokyo within the next few days, so I'm really looking forward to spending time with them.

Speaking of Japan, the new photographs you have posted are absolutely fantastic! The one of the cherry blossoms is gorgeous. I love street photography too. I am envious of your range finder camera, but what's more is how remarkably talented photographers you are. Thank you.

I have not been to Casa lately, but I imagine everyone is doing great. I should go there for lunch this week.

I am glad you are having fun in Japan. The blogs will be indispensable since I want to go sometime in the future.

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I didn't have much faith that we were going to have a good place here. We found it very difficult to find a place to stay that was central, had two beds, and wasn't $4000 per month. At the last minute Todd booked us a room in a great area that was relatively inexpensive. I figured quality would suffer.

I'm thrilled to say that I was wrong.

We met Blair, our landlord who is 42 but looks (possibly significantly) under 30, and he walked us to the apartment. As promised, it's really just a few minutes from the train station.

I am hoping you would share your resources for your reading on Japanese history. Book titles and/or urls would be very helpful.

K

I got that a week ago, and I kind of sat there staring at the email. Japanese history is some of the most confusing to start to learn, because different elements of Japanese history and culture all play on and influence each other. I could run you through the military history of Japan from The Battle of Okehazama to Sekigahara to the Boshin War, from there into Dai Nippon Tekoku Era, from there into defeat and the Occupation under McArthur, and then we could do a little post-war history.